Today most industries strive for sustainability. Nonwovens producers are switching to recycled raw materials, however at Freudenberg Politex we believe that recycling is not enough. Since the early 90s we have been pioneers in producing in-house polyester fiber from post-consumer PET bottles, which was our competitive strength for going green. Our continuous efforts in improving our environmental impacts have gone much further since then.

Today we are very proud of communicating the results of the LCA studies recently concluded in Italy and France: in just one year we have been able to reduce our Carbon Footprint by 5%, that corresponds to a reduction of 4.800 tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

Our comprehensive strategy for sustainable development is made of different activities and specific improvement targets in the different areas of our supply chain: from the intensive research on renewable resources and raw material consumption to processes optimization and waste reduction programs, from energy efficiency and water management to continuous research on raw materials as well as on finished products optimization.

Here below a couple of concrete results achieved and measured with the yearly monitoring of LCA:

- In Novedrate the CO2 emissions of the reinforced staple nonwovens decreased by 3%, reaching outstanding levels thanks to its being 85% made of renewable resources. These savings are added to the 14.000 tons already avoided every year only in Novedrate site, thanks to the internal production of electric and thermal energy through cogeneration;

- in Pisticci the consumption of non-renewable resources for the reinforced staple nonwovens Terbond R decreased by 40%, thanks to the increased use of renewable resources and to a greener energy mix supplied by the local provider;

- in Colmar the zero landfill program brought in 2011 a reduction of waste sent to landfill by more than 60% vs. the previous year: today more than two-thirds of waste are sent to recovery/recycling or to energy valorization.

Also in Freudenberg Politex plants in Macon (USA) and Zavolzhie (Russia) additional programs for waste reduction through recycling and valorization are contributing to pursue the Group's sustainability goals.

In the year of our 40th anniversary and 20 years from the first recycling plant, we are happy to say that Freudenberg Politex Building ReEvolution continues!